A simulated smoking article employed for enjoying the flavor and smoke of tobacco without burning tobacco is already known, and various types of simulated smoking articles have been proposed.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-232481 discloses a typical concept of a conventional simulated smoking article. The article of this reference uses, e.g., a rod-like solid material. When the solid material is heated by an electric heating element, an inhalation target, e.g., a flavor, is generated.
In the article utilizing such an electric heating element, if a power supply is incorporated in the article, the internal structure is complicated to increase the cost, and once the article causes a trouble, it is difficult to repair. In use of an external power supply, if the power supply and the smoking article are connected to each other with a cord, not only the location where the article can be used is limited, but also the cord becomes an obstacle. Inversely, if the article is formed such that it is removed from the external power supply when used for smoking, the heated state of the material can only be maintained until the user's inhalation (puffing) operation is complete about once or twice.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,931 discloses a simulated smoking article using a pressurized aerosol container. In the article of this reference, the puffing operation of the user swings the vanes to mechanically open the outlet port of the container, and the aerosol is emitted.
In the article utilizing such a pressurized flavor gas source, it is difficult to adjust the opening/closing valve such that the flavor gas can be emitted continuously. More specifically, in the article of this type, if the opening/closing vale is formed to have a simple structure, all of the pressurized flavor gas may undesirably be emitted until a puffing operation is complete twice or three times.